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Combining the ultra-consumer-friendly iPhone with Google Search and Apps should make advertisers and publishers more comfortable with creating ads for the iPhone. Assuming Microsoft's bid for Yahoo comes to fruition, Google would be better positioned with Apple in going head-to-head versus Microhoo. That will be important since a Microhoo would be extremely attractive to mobile advertisers, thanks to Microsoft-

Though launched as a consumer smart phone, the iPhone is catching on in the enterprise. The easy-on-the-hands touch-screen lets even the most plodding of users quickly jump from application to application. This is essential for oft-traveling road warriors, who need the same communications and collaboration capabilities they get from their laptops on their smart phones. If there was ever a device Google could leverage to get its Apps to millions of users as alternatives to Microsoft's software, the iPhone is it.

Kind of. A Google-Apple marriage could only work if Google were hands-off with respect to the areas it does not play in now, including the devices Apple makes. Google would have a real consumer/enterprise play by souping up its Apps for not only the iPhone but also for the MacBook PC and perhaps even the iPod, with the iPod becoming more of a productivity device than a music player. For 30 years, Microsoft has managed to eschew hardware plays and has proven successful thus far. With the future of the Web at stake, Google could take the leap and let Apple be the hardware Mork to Google's Apps Mindy.

Ultimately, a marriage of Google and Apple would create an Internet zeitgeist the likes of which the world hasn't seen. Users would be playing in Second Life and working on Google Spreadsheets from their iPhones, watching YouTube on their iPods, while business workers would be leveraging a vastly improved suite of Google Apps on Macs, creating a serious challenger to Microsoft Windows on PCs. Microsoftees and former Yahoos would flee to Google to be part of the new dynamo. Google with Apple, which pundits will call Gapple, will suck desktop and mobile market share from Microhoo, which will forgo its cloud computing aspirations.

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Top 5 Reasons Google Should/Shouldnt Buy Apple - 1. Google Would Be Betting the House

Top 5 Reasons Google Shouldn't Buy AppleWhen this slide show was created, Apple's market capitalization was $108 billion, and Google's market cap was $130 billion. To say that Google would have to borrow a lot of money to consummate this deal is an understatement. As valuable as Apple is, this risk may be too much for Google to digest. To date, Google has played a conservative hand with regard to acquisitions, buying either startups, such as Jaiku and Zingku, or established businesses, such as YouTube and Postini. Bidding for Apple would be the technological equivalent of betting the house. The question: Does Google believe in Apple enough to make that bet?

Google has invested so much time and resources in Android. Anything less than a batch of cool, highly fluid mobile phones that run Google Apps and other apps better than Symbian and Windows Mobile run apps would be a colossal letdown. By bidding for Apple, Google will be asked whether its Android mobile operating stack is a failure. Will Google cannibalize the iPhone by creating Android-based phones, or do future versions of the iPhone run Android for balance? Both scenarios are unlikely, as recent reports from Google's camp say that the company believes the iPhone, with 4 million units shipped in seven months, has limited market growth potential compared with Android.

The juxtaposition of Android and the iPhone underscores one of the more stark contrasts between the companies: Google lauds open-source technologies, offering free access to Internet apps that consumers embrace as alternatives to the software packages from Microsoft and others; Apple, reknowned and sometimes lambasted for its proprietary ways, doesn't give away anything for free. The philosophical chasm between Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Apple CEO Steve Jobs will be too great to bridge.

As much as press and analysts have hammered Microsoft over what it will do with Yahoo's Zimbra assets, Google would have to consider what to do with Xserve and Xsan, Apple's enterprise server and file server technologies, respectively. While Zimbra's collaboration tools are redundant at Microsoft, Google has no reason to sell servers or storage. Moreover, internal use of these products in Google's data centers is also out of the question. Xserve and Xsan are proprietary products, and Google employs Hadoop and other open-source applications for its distributed data center operations. Xserve and Xsan appear to be the odd men out.

Consider the post-Gapple future: Despite the separation of Google's search church and Apple's hardware state, Apple's closed proprietary ways begin to exert an ominous undertow on Google's executives and trickle down to the product people. These folks begin to realize that controlling the information flow the way Apple does makes it easier on product development. App betas are no longer thrown up the second the last 0 or 1 is written, and Google becomes a mercilessly discreet entity. The new style sucks the fun out of the Web, and users spurn Gapple and flock to more socially oriented sites such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, which begin sponsoring their own mobile devices for consumers and businesses.

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Top 5 Reasons Google Should/Shouldnt Buy Apple - See More Slideshows Like This One